bennett, arnold - the human machine

8/12/2019 Bennett, Arnold - The Human Machine

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/bennett-arnold-the-human-machine 1/134

THE HUMAN MACHINE - ARNOLD BENNETT



THE HUMAN MACHINE



THE

HUMAN MACHINE

BY

ARNOLD BENNETTAuthor of How to Live on 24 Hours a Day

The Old Wives' Tale, etc.

NEW^Btlr YORK

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY



Author^s Edition

P5<INTF,D m THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA



CONTENTS

Page

I. Taking Oneself for Granted .... 7

II. Amateurs in the Art of Living ... 15

III. The Brain as a Gentleman-at-Large. 22

IV. The First Practical Step 29

V. Habit-Forming by Concentration . . 36

VI. Lord over the Noddle 44

VII. What Living chiefly is ... . 51

VIII. The Daily Friction 58

IX. Fire 65

X. Mischievously Overworking it . . . 72

XI. An Interlude 79

XII. An Interest in Life 87

XIII. Success and Failure 94

XIV. A Man and His Environment . . . loi

XV. L. S. D .log

XVI. Reason, Reason 117



Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2010 with funding from

Lyrasis IVIembers and Sloan Foundation

http://www.archive.org/details/humanmachineOOarno



TAKING ONESELF FORGRANTED

lHERE are men who are capable of lov-

ing a machine more deeply than they

can love a woman. They are among

the happiest men on earth. This is not a sneer

meanly shot from cover at women. It is simply

a statement of notorious fact. Men who worry

themselves to distraction over the perfecting of

a machine are indubitably blessed beyond their

kind. Most of us have known such men. Yes-

terday they were constructing motor-cars. But

to-day aeroplanes are in the air— or, at any

rate, they ought to be, according to the in-

ventors. Watch the inventors. Invention is not

usually their principal business. They must

invent in their spare time. They must invent

before breakfast, invent in the Strand between

Lyons's and the office, invent after dinner, in-

vent on Sundays. See with what ardour they

rush home of a night See how they seize a



8 THE HUMAN MACHINE

half-holiday, like hungry dogs a bone They

don't want golf, bridge, limericks, novels, illus-

trated magazines, clubs, whisky, starting-prices,

hints about neckties, political meetings, yarns,

comic songs, anturic salts, nor the smiles that

are situate between a gay corsage and a picture

hat. They never wonder, at a loss, v/hat they

will do next. Their evenings never drag— are

always too short. You may, indeed, catch them

at twelve o'clock at night on the flat of their

backs ; but not in bed No, in a shed, under the

machine, holding a candle (v/hose paths drop

fatness)up to the connecting-rod that is strained,

or the wheel that is out of centre. They are con-

tinually interested, nay, enthralled. They have

a machine, and they are perfecting it. They get

one part right, and then another goes wrong;

and they get that right, and then another goes

wrong, and so on. When they are quite sure

they have reached perfection, forth issues the

machine out of the shed— and in five minutes

is smashed up, together with a limb or so of the

inventors, just because they had been quite sure

too soon. Then the whole business starts again.

They do not give up— that particular wreck

was, of course, due to a mere oversight; the



THE HUMAN MACHINE 9

whole business starts again. For they have

glimpsed perfection; they have the gleam (rf

perfection in their souls. Thus their lives run

away. They will never fly you remark, cyni-

cally. Well, if they don't? Besides, what about

Wright? With all your cynicism, have you never

envied them their machine and their passionate

interest in it?

You know, perhaps, the moment when, brush-

ing in front of the glass, you detected your first

grey hair. You stopped brushing; then you re-

sumed brushing, hastily; you pretended not to

be shocked, but you were. Perhaps you knowa more disturbing moment than that, the mo-

ment when it suddenly occurred to you that you

had arrived as far as you ever will arrive

and you had realised as much of your early

dream as you ever will realise, and the realisation

was utterly unlike the dream; and marriage was

excessively prosaic and eternal, not at all what

you expected it to be; and your illusions were

dissipated; and games and hobbies had an un-

pleasant core of tedium and futility; and the

ideal tobacco-mixture did not exist; and one

literary masterpiece resembled another; and all

the days that are to come will more or less re-



10 THE HUMAN MACHINE

semble the present day, until you die; and in an

illuminating flash you understood what all those

people were driving at when they wrote such

unconscionably long letters to the Telegraph as

to life being worth living or not worth living;

and there was naught to be done but face the

grey, monotonous future, and pretend to be

cheerful with the worm of ennui gnawing at

your heart In a word, the moment when it

occurred to you that yours is the common lot.

In that moment have you not wished— do you

not continually wish— for an exhaustless ma-

chine, a machine that you could never get to the

end of? Would you not give your head to be

lying on the flat of your back, peering with a

candle, dirty, foiled, catching cold— but ab-

sorbed in the pursuit of an object? Have you

not gloomily regretted that you were born with-

out a mechanical turn, because there is really

something about a machine . . . ?

It has never struck you that you do possess a

machine Oh, blind Oh, dull It has never

struck you that you have at hand a machine won-

derful beyond all mechanisms in sheds, intricate,

delicately adjustable, of astounding and miracu-

lous possibilities, interminably interesting That



THE HUMAN MACHINE ii

machine is yourself. This fellov/ is preaching.

I won't have it you exclaim resentfully. Dear

sir, I am not preaching, and, even if I were, I

think you <woutd have it. I think I can anyhow

keep hold of your button for a while, though you

pull hard. I am not preaching. I am simply bent

on calling your attention to a fact which has

perhaps wholly or partially escaped you—namely, that you are the most fascinating bit of

machinery that ever was. You do yourself less

than justice. It is said that men are only inter-

ested in themselves. The truth is that, as a rule,

men are interested in every mortal thing except

themselves. They have a habit of taking them-

selves for granted, and that habit is responsible

for nine-tenths of the boredom and despair on

the face of the planet.

A man will wake up in the middle of the night

(usually owing to some form of delightful ex-

cess), and his brain will be very active indeed

for a space ere he can go to sleep again. In that

candid hour, after the exaltation of the evening

and before the hope of the dawn, he will see

everything in its true colours— except himself.

There is nothing like a sleepless couch for a clear

vision of one's environment. He will see all his




wife's faults and the hopelessness of trying to

cure them. He will momentarily see, though

with less sharpness of outline, his own faults.

He will probably decide that the anxieties of

children outweigh the joys connected with chil-

dren. He will admit all the shortcomings of

existence, will face them like a man, grimly,

sourly, in a sturdy despair. He will mutter : Of

course I'm angry Who wouldn't be? Of

course I 'm disappointed Did I expect this

twenty years ago? Yes, we ought to save more.

But we don't, so there you are I 'm bound to

worry I know I should be better if I did n't

smoke so much. I know there 's absolutely no

sense at all in taking liqueurs. Absurd to be

ruffled with her when she 's in one of her moods.

I don't have enough exercise. Can't be regular,

somehow. Not the slightest use hoping that

things will be different, because I knov/ they

won't. Queer world Never really what you

may call happy, you know. Now, if things were

different . .. He loses consciousness.

Observe: he has taken himself for granted,

just glancing at his faults and looking away again.

It is his environment that has occupied his atten-

tion, and his environment— things — that he



THE HUMAN MACHINE 13

would wish to have different, did he not know,

out of the fulness of experience, that it is futile

to desire such a change? What he wants is a

pipe that won't put itself into his mouth, a glass

that won't leap of its own accord to his lips,

money that won't slip untouched out of his

pocket, legs that without asking will carry him

certain miles every day in the open air, habits

that practise themselves, a wife that will expand

and contract according to his humours, like a

Wernicke bookcase, always complete but never

finished. Wise man, he perceives at once that

he can't have these things. And so he resigns

himself to the universe, and settles down to a

permanent, restrained discontent. No one shall

say he is unreasonable.

You see, he has given no attention to the ma-

chine. Let us not call it a flying-machine. Let

us call it simply an automobile. There it is on

the road, jolting, screeching, ratttling, perfum-

ing. And there he is, saying : This road ought

to be as smooth as velvet. That hill in front is

ridiculous, and the descent on the other side

positively dangerous. And it's all turns— I

can't see a hundred yards in front. He has a

wild idea of trying to force the County Council




to sand-paper the road, or of employing the new

Territorial Army to remove the hill. But he dis-

misses that idea— he is so reasonable. He ac-

cepts all. He sits clothed in reasonableness on

the machine, and accepts all. Ass you ex-

claim. Why does n't he get down and inflate

that tyre, for one thing? Anyone can see the

sparkling apparatus is wrong, and it 's perfectly

certain the gear-box wants oil. Why does n't

he ? I will tell you why he does n't. Just

because he is n't aware that he is on a machine

at all. He has never examined what he is on.

And at the back of his consciousness is a dim idea

that he is perched on a piece of solid, immutable

rock that runs on castors.



II

AMATEURS IN THE ART OFLIVING

CONSIDERING that we have to spend

the whole of our lives in this human

machine, considering that it is our sole

means of contact and compromise with the rest

of the world, we really do devote to it very little

attention. When I say we, I mean our inmost

spirits, the instinctive part, the mystery within

that exists. And when I say the human ma-

chine I mean the brain and the body— and

chiefly the brain. The expression of the soul by

means of the brain and body is what we call the

art of living. We certainly do not learn this

art at school to any appreciable extent. At school

we are taught that it is necessary to fling our

arms and legs to and fro for so many hours per

diem. We are also shown, practically, that our

brains are capable of performing certain useful

tricks, and that if we do not compel our brains



i6 THE HUMAN MACHINE

to perform those tricks we shall suffer. Thus

one day we run home and proclaim to our de-

lighted parents that eleven twelves are 132. A

feat of the brain So it goes on until our parents

begin to look up to us because we can chatter

of cosines or sketch the foreign policy of Louis

XIV. Good But not a word about the prin-

ciples of the art of living yet Only a few de-

tached rules from our parents, to be blindly fol-

lowed when particular crises supervene. And,

indeed, it would be absurd to talk to a school-

boy about the expression of his soul. He would

probably mutter a monosyllable which is not

mice.

Of course, school is merely a preparation for

fiving; unless one goes to a university, in which

case it is a preparation for university. One is

supposed to turn one's attention to living when

these preliminaries are over— say at the age of

about tv/enty. Assuredly one lives then; there

is, however, nothing new in that, for one has

been living all the time, in a fashion; all the

time one has been using the machine without

understanding it. But does one, school and col-

lege being over, enter upon a study of the ma-

chine? Not a bit. The question then becomes.




not how to live, but ho%v to obtain and retain a

position in which one will be able to live; how

to get minute portions of dead animals and plants

which one can swallow, in order not to die of

hunger; how to acquire and constantly renew a

stock of other portions of dead animals and plants

in which one can envelop oneself in order not to

die of cold; how to procure the exclusive right

of entry into certain huts where one may sleep

and eat without being rained upon by the clouds

of heaven. And so forth; And when one has

realised this ambition, there comes the desire to

be able to double the operation and do it, not for

oneself alone, but for oneself and another. Mar-

riage But no scientific sustained attention is

yet given to the real business of living, of smooth

intercourse, of self-expression, of conscious adap-

tation to environment— in brief, to the study

of the machine. At thirty the chances are that

a man will understand better the draught of a

chimney than his own respiratory apparatus—to name one of the simple, obvious things— and

as for understanding the working of his own

brain— what an idea As for the skill to avoi(f

the waste of power involved by friction in the

business of living, do we give an hour to it in



i8 THE HUMAN MACHINE

a month? Do we ever at all examine it save in

an amateurish and clumsy fashion? A young

lady produces a water-colour drawing. Very

nice we say, and add, to ourselves, For an

amateur. But our living is more amateurish

than that young lady's drawing; though surely

we ought everyone of us to be professionals at

living

When we have been engaged in the prelimi-

naries to living for about fifty-five years, we

begin to think about slacking off. Up till this

period our reason for not having scientifically

studied the art of living— the perfecting and use

of the finer parts of the machine— is not that

we have lacked leisure (most of us have enor-

mous heaps of leisure), but that we have simply

been too absorbed in the preliminaries, have, in

fact, treated the preliminaries to the business as

the business itself. Then at fifty-five we ought

at last to begin to live our lives with professional

skill, as a professional painter paints pictures.

Yes, but we can't. It is too late then. Neither

painters, nor acrobats, nor any professionals can

be formed at the age of fifty-five. Thus we finish

our lives amateurishly, as we have begun them.

And when the machine creaks and sets our teeth




on edge, or refuses to obey the steering-wheel

and deposits us in the ditch, we say : Can't be

helped or Does n't matter It will be all the

same a hundred years hence or : I must make

the best of things. And we try to believe that

in accepting the siaius quo we have justified

the status quo, and all the time we feel our

insincerity.

You exclaim that I exaggerate. I do. To

force into prominence an aspect of affairs usually

overlooked, it is absolutely necessary to exag-

gerate. Poetic license is one name for this kind

of exaggeration. But I exaggerate very little

indeed, much less than perhaps you think. I

know that you are going to point out to me that

vast numbers of people regularly spend a con-

siderable portion of their leisure in striving after

self-improvement. Granted And I am glad of

it. But I should be gladder if their strivings

bore more closely upon the daily business of

living, of self-expression without friction and

without futile desires. See this man who regu-

larly studies every evening of his life He has

genuinely understood the nature of poetry, and

his taste is admirable. He recites verse with

true feeling, and may be said to be highly culti-




vated. Poetry is a continual source of pleasure

to him. True But why is he always complain-

ing about not receiving his deserts in the office?

Why is he worried about finance? Why does he

so often sulk with his wife? Why does he per-

sist in eating more than his digestion will toler-

ate? It was not written in the book of fate that

he should complain and worry and sulk and

suffer. And if he was a professional at living he

would not do these things. There is no reason

why he should do them, except the reason that

he has never learnt his business, never studied

the human machine as a whole, never really

thought rationally about living. Supposing you

encountered an automobilist who v/as swerving

and grinding all over the road, and you stopped

to ask what was the matter, and he replied:

Never mind what 's the matter. Just look at

my lovely acetylene lamps, hov.^ they shine, and

how I 've polished them You would not re-

gard him as a Clifford-Earp, or even as an en-

tirely sane man. So with our student of poetry.

It is indubitable that a large amount of what is

known as self-improvement is simply self-indul-

gence— a form of pleasure which only inciden-

tally improves a particular part of the machine.




and even that to the neglect of far more impor-

tant parts.

My aim is to direct a man's attention to himself

as a whole, considered as a machine, complex

and capable of quite extraordinary efficiency, for

travelling through this world smoothly, in any

desired manner, with satisfaction not onlyto

himself but to the people he meets en routes and

the people v/ho are overtaking him and whom

he is overtaking. My aim is to show that only

an inappreciable fraction of our ordered and sus-

tained efforts is given to the business of actual

living, as distinguished from the preliminaries

to living.



Ill

THE BRAIN AS A GENTLE-MAN-AT-LARGE

Tis not as if, in this business of daily living,

we were seriously hampered by ignorance

either as to the results which we ought to

obtain, or as to the general means which we must

employ in order to obtain them. With all our

absorption in themere

preliminariesto

living,

and all our carelessness about living itself, we

arrive pretty soon at a fairly accurate notion of

what satisfactory living is, and we perceive with

some clearness the methods necessary to success.

I

have pictured the man who wakes upin

the

middle of the night and sees the horrid semi-

fiasco of his life. But let me picture the man

who wakes up refreshed early on a fine summer

morning and looks into his mind with the eyes

of hopeand

experience,not

experienceand

de-

spair. That m.an will pass a delightful half-hour

in thinking upon the scheme of the universe as

it affects himself. He is quite clear that content-




ment depends on his own acts, and that no powtr

•an prevent him from performing those acts.

He plans everything out, and before he gets up

he knows precisely what he must and will do in

certain foreseen crises and junctures. He sin-

cerely desires to live efficiently— who would

wish to make a daily mess of existence?— and

he knows the way to realise the desire.

And yet, mark me That man will not have

been an hour on his feet on this difficult earth

before the machine has unmistakably gone

wrong: the machine which was designed to do

this work of living, which is capable of doing it

thoroughly well, but which has not been put into

order What is the use of consulting the map

of life and tracing the itinerary, and getting the

machine out of the shed, and making a start, if

half the nuts are loose, or the steering pillar is

twisted, or there is no petrol in the tank? (Hav-

ing asked this question, I will drop the me-

chanico-vehicular comparison, which is too rough

and crude for the delicacy of the subject.)

Where has the human machine gone wrong?

It has gone wrong in the brain. What, is he

wrong in the head ? Most assuredly, most

strictly. He knows— none better— that when




his wife employs a particular tone containing

t«*i grains of asperity, and he replies in a par-

ticular tone containing eleven grains, the conse-

quences will be explosive. He knows, on the

other hand, that if he replies in a tone contain-

ing only one little drop of honey the consequences

may not be unworthy of two reasonable beings.

He knows this. His brain is fully instructed.

And lo his brain, while arguing that women

are really too absurd (as if that was the point),

IS sending down orders to the muscles of the

throat and mouth which result in at least eleven

grains of asperity, and conjugal relations are

endangered for the day. He didn't want to do

it. His desire was not to do it. He despises

himself for doing it. But his brain was not in

working order. His brain ran away— raced

— on its own account, against reason, against

desire, against morning resolves— and there

he is

That is just one example, of the simplest and

slightest. Examples can be multiplied. The man

may be a young man whose immediate future

depends on his passing an examination— an

examination which he is capable of passing on

his head, which nothing can prevent him from



THE HUMAN MACHINE • 25

passing if only his brain will not be so absurd

as to give orders to his legs to walk out of the

house towards the tennis court instead of send-

ing them upstairs to the study; if only, having

once safely lodged him in the study, his brain

will devote itself to the pages of books instead

of dwelling on the image of a nice girl— not

at all like other girls. Or the man may be an old

man who will live in perfect comfort if only his

brain will not interminably run round and round

in a circle of grievances, apprehensions, and fears

which no amount of contemplation can destroy

or even ameliorate.

The brain, the brain— that is the seat of

trouble Well, you say, of course it is. We

all know that We don't act as if we did, any-

way. Give us more brains, Lord ejaculated

a great writer. Personallj^, I think he would

have been wiser if he had asked first for the

power to keep in order such brains as we have.

We indubitably possess quite enough brains,

quite as much as v/e can handle. The supreme

muddlers of living are often people of quite

remarkable intellectual faculty, with a quite

remarkable gift of being wise for others. The

pity is that our brains have a way of wander-




ing, as it is politely called. Brain-wandering is

indeed now recognised as a specific disease. I

wonder what you, O business man with an office

in Ludgate Circus, would say to your office-boy,

whom you had dispatched on an urgent message

to Westminster, and whom you found larking

around Euston Station when you rushed to catch

j'^our week-end train. Please, sir, I started to

go to Westminster, but there 's something funny

in my limbs that makes me go up all manner of

streets. I can't help it, sir Can't you? you

would say. Well, you had better go and be

somebody else's office-boy. Your brain is

something worse than that office-boy, something

more insidiously potent for evil.

I conceive the brain of the average well-

intentioned man as possessing the tricks and

manners of one of those gentlemen-at-large who,

having nothing very urgent to do, stroll along

and offer their services gratis to some short-

handed work of philanthropy. They v/ill com-

monly demoralise and disorganise the business

conduct of an affair in about a fortnight. They

come when they like; they go when they like.

Sometimes they are exceedingly industrious and

obedient, but then there is an even :;hance that




they will shirk and follow their own sweet will.

And they must n't be spoken to, or pulled up—for have they not kindly volunteered, and are

they not giving their days for naught? These

persons are the bane of the enterprises in which

they condescend to meddle. Now, there is a vast

deal too much of the gentleman-at-large about

one's brain. One's brain has no right whatever

to behave as a gentleman-at-large; but it in fact

does. It forgets ; it flatly ignores orders ; at the

critical moment, when pressure is highest, it

simply lights a cigarette and goes out for a walk.

And we meekly sit down under this behaviour

I did n't feel like stewing, says the young man

who, against his wish, will fail in his examina-

tion. The words were out of my mouth before

I knew it, says the husband whose wife is a

woman. I could n't get any inspiration to-day,

says the artist. I can't resist Stilton, says the

fellow who is dying of greed. One can't help

one's thoughts, says the old worrier. And this

last really voices the secret excuse of all five.

And you all say to me : My brain is myself.

How can I alter myself? I was born like that.

In the first place you were not born like that,

you have lapsed to that. And in the second




place your brain is not yourself. It is only a

part o£ yourself, and not the highest seat of

authority. Do you love your mother, wife, or

children with your brain? Do you desire with

your brain? Do you, in a word, ultimately and

essentially U-ve with your brain? No. Your

brain is an instrument. The proof that it is an

instrument lies in the fact that, when extreme

necessity urges, yoa can command your brain to

do certain things, and it does them. The first

of the two great principles which underlie the

efficiency of the human machine is this: The

Bratn is 2. seroa.ni, exterior io the centra force of

the Ego. If it is out of control the reason is not

that it is uncontrollable, but merely that its dis-

cipline has been neglected. The brain can be

trained, as the hand and eye can be trained; it

can be made as obedient as a sporting dog, and

by similar methods. In the meantime the indis-

pensable preparation for brain-discipline is to

form the habit of regarding one's brain as an

instrument exterior to one's self, like a tongue

or a foot.



IV

THE FIRST PRACTICAL STEP

THEbrain is a highly quaint organism.

Let me say at once, lest I should be

cannonaded by physiologists, psycholo-

gists, or metaphysicians, by that the brain

I mean the faculty which reasons and which

gives orders to the muscles. I mean exactly

what the plain man means by the brain. The

brain is the diplomatist which arranges relations

between our instinctive self and the universe,

and it fulfils its mission when it provides for the

maximum of freedom to the instincts with the

minimum of friction. It argues with the in-

stincts. It takes them on one side and points

out the unwisdom of certain performances. It

catches them by the coat-tails when they are

about to make fools of themselves. Don't drink

all that iced champagne at a draught, it says

to one instinct ; we may die of it. Don't

catch that rude fellow one in the ej^e, it says

to another instinct ; he is mere powerful than




us. It is, in fact, a majestic spectacle of com-

mon sense. And yet it has the most extraordi-

nary lapses. It is just like that man— we all

know him and consult him— who is a continual

fount of excellent, sagacious advice on every-

thing, but who somehow cannot bring his sagac-

ity to bear on his own personal career.

In the matter of its own special activities the

brain is usually undisciplined and unreliable.

We never know what it will do next. We give it

some work to do, say, as we are walking along

the street to the office. Perhaps it has to devise

some scheme for making £150 suiHce for £200,

or perhaps it has to plan out the heads of a very

important letter. We meet a pretty woman, and

away that undisciplined, sagacious brain runs

after her, dropping the scheme or the draft

letter, and amusing itself with aspirations or

regrets for half an hour, an hour, sometimes a

day. The serious part of our instinctive self

feebly remonstrates, but without effect. Or it

may be that we have suffered a great disap-

pointment, which is definite and hopeless. Will

the brain, like a sensible creature, leave that dis-

appointment alone, and instead of living in the

past live in the present or the future? Not it




Though it knows perfectly well that it is wasting

its *ime and casting a very painful and utterly

unnecessary gloom over itself and us, it can so

little control its unhealthy, morbid appetite that

no expostulations will induce it to behave ration-

ally. Or perhaps, after a confabulation with the

soul, it has been decided that when next a certain

harmful instinct comes into play the brain shall

firmly interfere. Yes, says the brain, I really

will watch that. But when the moment arrives,

is the brain on the spot? The brain has prob-

ably forgotten the affair entirely, or remembered

it too late; or sighs, as the victorious instinct

knocks it on the head : Well, nexi time

All this, and much more that every reader can

supply from his own exciting souvenirs, is absurd

and ridiculous on the part of the brain. It is

a conclusive proof that the brain is out of con-

dition, idle as a nigger, capricious as an actor-

manager, and eaten to the core with loose habits.

Therefore the brain must be put into training.

It is the most important part of the human

machine by which the soul expresses and de-

velops itself, and it must learn good habits. And

primarily it must be taught obedience. Obedi-

ence can only be taught by imposing one's will.




by the sheer force of volition. And the brain

must be mastered by wili-power. The begin-

ning of wise living lies in the control of the brain

by the will ; so that the brain may act according

to the precepts which the brain itself gives.

With an obedient disciplined brain a man may

live always right up to the standard of his best

moments.

To teach a child obedience you tell it to do

something, and you see that that something is

done. The same with the brain. Here is the

foundation of an efficient life and the antidote

for the tendency to make a fool of oneself. It

is marvellously simple. Say to your brain:

From 9 o'clock to 9.30 this morning you must

dwell without ceasing on a particular topic which

I will give you. Now, it does n't matter what

this topic is

— the point is to control and invig-

orate the brain by exercise— but you may just

as well give it a useful topic to think over as a

futile one. You might give it this : My brain

is my servant. I am not the plaything of my

brain. Let it concentrate on these statements

for thirty minutes. V/hat? you cry. Is this

the way to an efficient life? Why, there 's noth-

ing in it Simple as it may appear, this is the




way, and it is the only way. As for there being

nothing in it, try it. I guarantee that you will

fail to keep your brain concentrated on the given

idea for thirty seconds— let alone thirty min-

utes. You will find your brain conducting itself

in a manner which would be comic were it not

tragic. Your first experiments will result in dis-

heartening failure, for to exact from the brain, at

will and by will, concentration on a given idea

for even so short a period as half an hour is an

exceedingly difficult feat— and a fatiguing It

needs perseverance. It needs a terrible obsti-

nacy on the part of the will. That brain of yours

will be hopping about all over the place, and

every time it hops you must bring it back by

force to its original position. You must abso-

lutely compel it to ignore every idea except the

one which you have selected for its attention.

You cannot hope to triumph all at once. But

you can hope to triumph. There is no royal road

to the control of the brain. There is no patent

dodge about it, and no complicated function

which a plain person may not comprehend. It

is simply a question of : I will, / will, and I

ivftt. (Italics here are indispensable.)

Let me resume. Efficient living, living up te




one's best standard, getting the last ounce of

power out of the machine with the minimum of

friction: these things depend on the disciplined

and vigorous condition of the brain. The brain

can be disciplined by learning the habit of obedi-

ence. And it can learn the habit of obedience

by the practice of concentration. Disciplinary

concentration, though nothing could have the air

of being simpler, is the basis of the whole struc-

ture. This fact must be grasped imaginatively;

it must be seen and felt. The more regularly

concentration is practised, the more firmly will

the imagination grasp the effects of it, both

direct and indirect. After but a few days of

honest trying in the exercise which I have indi-

cated, you will perceive its influence. You will

grow accustomed to the idea, at first strange in

its novelty, of the brain being external to the

supreme force which is yoa, and in subjection

to that force. You will, as a not very distant

possibility, see yourself in possession of the

power to switch your brain on and off in a par-

ticular subject as you switch electricity on and

off in a particular room. The brain will get used

to the straight paths of obedience. And— a re-

markable phenomenon— it will, by the mere




practice of obedience, become less forgetful and

more effective. It will not so frequently give

way to an instinct that takes it by surprise. In

a word, it will have received a general tonic.

With a brain that is improving every day you

can set about the perfecting of the machine in

a scientific manner.



HABIT-FORMING BY CONCEN-TRATION

S soon as the will has got the upper hand

of the brain— as soon as it can say to

the brain, with a fair certainty of being

obeyed : Do this. Think along these lines, and

continue to do so without wandering until I give

you leave to stop — then is the time arrived

when the perfecting of the human machine may

be undertaken in a large and comprehensive

spirit, as a city council undertakes the purifica-

tion and reconstruction of a city. The tremen-

dous possibilities of an obedient brain will be

perceived immediately we begin to reflect upon

what we mean by our character. Now, a

person's character is, and can be, nothing else

but the total result of his habits of thought. A

person is benevolent because he habitually thinks

benevolently. A person is idle because his

thoughts dwell habitually on the instant pleas-

ures of idleness. It is true that everybody is




born with certain predispositions, and that these

predispositions influence very strongly the early

formation of habits of thought. But the fact

remains that the character is built by long-con-

tinued habits of thought. If the mature edifice

of character usually shows in an exaggerated

form the peculiarities of the original predispo-

sition, this merely indicates a probability that

the slow erection of the edifice has proceeded at

haphazard, and that reason has not presided

over it. A child may be born with a tendency to

bent shoulders. If nothing is done, if on the

contrary he becomes a clerk and abhors gym-

nastics, his shoulders will develop an excessive

roundness, entirely through habit. Whereas, if

his will, guided by his reason, had compelled the

formation of a corrective physical habit, his

shoulders might have been, if not quite straight,

nearly so. Thus a physical habit The same

with a mental habit.

The more closely we examine the develop-

ment of original predispositions, the more clearly

we shall see that this development is not inev-

itable, is not a process which works itself out

independently according to mysterious, ruthless

law/a which we cannot understand. For instance.




of your own habits, mental or physical. You

will be able to recall the time when that habit

did not exist, or if it did exist it was scarcely

perceptible. And you will discover that nearly

all your habits have been formed unconsciously,

by daily repetitions which bore no relation to

a general plan, and which you practised not

noticing. You will be compelled to admit that

your character, as it is to-day, is a structure

that has been built almost without the aid of an

architect; higgledy-piggledy, anyhow. But oc-

casionally the architect did step in and design

something. Here and there among your habits

you will find one that you consciously and of

deliberate purpose initiated and persevered with

— doubtless owing to some happy influence.

What is the difference between that conscious

habit and the unconscious habits? None what-

ever as regards its effect on the sum of your

character. It may be the strongest of all your

habits. The only quality that differentiates it

from the others is that it has a definite object

(most likely a good object), and that it wholly

or partially fulfils that object. There is not a

man who reads these lines but has, in this detail

or that, proved in himself that the will, forcing




the brain to repeat the same action again

and again, can modify the shape of his char-

acter as a sculptor modifies the shape of

damp clay.

But if a grown man's character is developing

from day to day (as it is), if nine-tenths of the

development is due to unconscious action and

one-tenth to conscious action, and if the one-

tenth conscious is the most satisfactory part

of the total result; why, in the name of common

sense, henceforward, should not nine-tenths, in-

stead of one-tenth, be due to conscious action?

What is there to prevent this agreeable consum-

mation? There is nothing whatever to prevent

it— except insubordination on the part of the

brain. And insubordination of the brain can be

cured, as I have previously shown. When I see

men unhappy and inefficient in the craft of Ik>-

ingy from sheer, crass inattention to their own

development; when I see misshapen men build-

ing up businesses and empires, and never stop-

ping to build up themselves; when I see dreary

men expending precisely the same energy on

teaching a dog to walk on its hind-legs as would

brighten the whole colour of their own lives, I

feel as if I wanted to give up the ghost, so ridic-




ulcus, so fatuous does the spectacle seeml But,

of course, I do not give up the ghost. The par-

oxysm passes. Only I really must cry out:

Can't you see what you 're missing? Can't you

see that you 're missing the most interesting

thing on earth, far more interesting than busi-

nesses, empires, and dogs? Does n't it strike you

how clumsy and short-sighted you are— work-

ing always with an inferior machine when

you might have a smooth-gliding perfection?

Does n't it strike you how badly you are treating

yourself?

Listen, you confirmed grumbler, you who make

the evening meal hideous with complaints against

destiny— for it is you I will single out. Are

you aware what people are saying about you

behind your back? They are saying that you

render yourself and your family miserable by

the habit which has grown on you of always

grumbling. Surely it is n't as bad as that ?

you protest. Yes, it is just as bad as that. You

say : The fact is, I know it 's absurd to grumble.

But I 'm like that. I 've tried to stop it, and I

can't How have you tried to stop it? Well,

I 've made up my mind several times to fight

against it, but I never succeed. This is strictly




between ourselves. I don't usually^^admit that

I 'm a grumbler. Considering that you grumble

for about an-^hour and a half every day of yourlife, it vtras sanguine, my dear sir, to expect to

cure such a habit by means of a solitary inten-

tion, formed at intervals in the brain and_then

forgotten. No . You must do more than that.

If you will dailyfix

your brainfirmly for half

an hour on the truth (you know it to be a truth)

that grumbling is absurd and futile, your brain

will henceforward begin to form a habit in that

direction ; it will begin to be moulded to the

ideathat

grumblingis absurd and futile. In

oddmoments, when it is n't thinking of anything in

particular, it will suddenly remember that grum-

bling is absurd and futile. When you sit down

to the meal and open your mouth to say ; I

can't think whatmy

ass of a partner means

by —-= it will remember that grumbling is

absurd and futile, and will alter the arrange-

ment of your throat, teeth, and tongue, so that

you will say : What Hne weather we 're hav-

ing In brief, it will remember involuntarily,

by a new habit. All who look into- their experi-

ence will admit that the failure to replace old

habits by new ones is due to the fact that at the




cfitical moment the brain does not remember ; it

simply forgets. The practice of concentration

will cure that. All depends on regular concen-

tration. This grumbling is an instance, though

chosen not quite at hazard.



VI

LORD OVER THE NODDLE

AVING proved by personal experiment

the truth of the first of the two great

principles which concern the human

machine— namely, that the brain is a servant,

not a master, and can be controlled— we may now

come to the second. The second is more funda-

mental than the first, but it can be of no use

until the first is understood and put into practice.

The human machine is an apparatus of brain

and muscle for enabling the Ego to develop freely

in the universe by which it is surrounded, with-

out friction. Its function is to convert the facts

of the universe to the best advantage of the

Ego. The facts of the universe are the material

with which it is its business to deal— not the

facts of an ideal universe, but the facts of this

universe. Hence, when friction occurs, when

the facts of the universe cease to be of advantage

to the Ego, the fault is in the machine. It is not

the solar system that has gone wrong, but the




human machine. Second great principle, there-

fore :'' In case of friction^ the machine is akvays

atfaxiH/'

You can control nothing but your own mind.

Even your two-year-old babe may defy you by

the instinctive force of its personality. But your

own mind you can control. Your own mind is

a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful

can enter except by your permission. Your own

mind has the power to transmute every external

phenomenon to its own purposes. If happiness

arises from cheerfulness, kindliness, and recti-

tude (and who will deny it?), what possible com-

bination of circumstances is going to make you

unhappy so long as the machine remains in

order? If self-development consists in the utili-

sation of one's environment (not utilisation of

somebody else's environment), how can your

environment prevent you from developing? You

would look rather foolish without it, anyway.

In that noddle of yours is everything necessary

for development, for the maintaining of dignity,

for the achieving of happiness, and you are abso-

lute lord over the noddle, will you but exercise

the powers of lordship. V/hy v/orry about the

contents of somebody else's noddle, in which




you can be nothing but an intruder, when you

may arrive at a better result, with absolute cer-

tainty, by confining your activities to your ov/n?

Look within. The Kingdom of Heaven

is within you. Oh, yes you protest. All

that 's old. Epictetus said that. Marcus Aure-

lius said that. Christ said that. They did. I ad-

mit it readily. But if you were rufBed this morn-

ing because your motor-omnibus broke down,

and you had to take a cab, then so far as you are

concerned these great teachers lived in vain.

You, calling yourself a reasonable man, are

going about dependent for your happiness, dig-

nity, and growth, upon a thousand things over

which you have no control, and the most exqui-

sitely organised machine for ensuring happiness,

dignity, and growth, is rusting away inside you.

And all because you have a sort of notion that

a saying said two thousand years ago cannot be

practical.

You remark sagely to your child : No, my

child, you cannot have that moon, and you will

accomplish nothing by crying for it. Now, here

is this beautiful box of bricks, by means of which

you may amuse yourself while learning many

wonderful matters and improving your mind.




You must try to be content v/ith what you have,

and to make the best of it. If you had the moon

you would n't be any happier. Then you lie

awake half the night repining because the last

post has brought a letter to the effect that the

Board cannot entertain your application for,

etc. You say the two cases are not alike. They

are not. Your child has never heard of Epicte-

tus. On the other hand, justice is the moon.

At your age you surely know that. But the

Directors oaghi to have granted my application,

you insist. Exactly I agree. But we are not

in a universe of oaghis. You have a special

apparatus within you for dealing with a universe

where oaghis are flagrantly disregarded. And

you are not using it. You are lying awake, keep-

ing your wife awake, injuring your health, in-

juring hers, losing your dignity and your cheer-

fulness. Why? Because you think that these

antics and performances v/ill influence the Board?

Because you think that they will put you into a

better condition for dealing with your environ-

ment to-morrow? Not a bit. Simply because

the machine is at fault.

In certain cases we do make use of our ma-

chines (as well as their sad condition of neglect




is just as much a fact of the universe as a v^hower

of rain or a storm at sea that swallows a ship.

We freely grant in the abstract that there must

be, at the present stage of evolution, a certain

number of persons with unfair minds. We are

quite ready to contemplate such an individual

with philosophy -— until it happens that, in the

course of the progress of the solar system, he

runs up against ourselves. Then listen to the

outcry Listen to the continual explosions of a

righteous man aggrieved The individual may

be our clerk, cashier, son, father, brother, part-

ner, wife, employer. We are ill-used We ar®

being treated unfairly We kick; we scream.

We nourish the inward sense of grievance that

eats the core out of content. We sit down in

the rain. We decline to think of umbrellas^ or

to run to shelter.

We care not that that individual is a fact which

the universe has been slowly manufacturing for

millions of years. Our attitude implies that we

want eternity to roll back and begin again, in

such wise that we at any rate shall not be dis-

turbed. Though we have a machine for the trans-

mutation of facts into food for our growth, we

do not dream of using it. But we say, he is




doing us harm Where? In our minds. He has

robbed us of our peace, our comfort, our happi-

ness, our good temper. Even if he has, we might

just as well inveigh against a shower. But has

he? What was our brain doing while this

naughty person stepped in and robbed us of the

only possessions worth having? No, no It is

not that he has done us harm— the one cheerful

item in a universe of stony facts is that no one

can harm anybody except himself— it is merely

that we have been silly, precisely as silly as if

we had taken a seat in the rain with a folded

umbrella by our side. . . .

The machine is at

fault. I fancy we are now obtaining glimpses

of what that phrase really means.



VII

WHAT LIVING CHIEFLY IS

ITis in intercourse— social, sentimental, or

business— with one's fellows that the

qualities and the condition of the human

machine are put to the test and strained. That

part of my life which I conduct by myself, with-

out reference — or at any rate without direct

reference— to others, I can usually manage in

such a way that the gods do not positively weep

at the spectacle thereof. My environment is

simpler, less puzzling, when I am alone, my

calm and my self-control less liable to violent

fluctuations. Impossible to be disturbed by a

chair Impossible that a chair should get on

one's nerves Impossible to blame a chair for

not being as reasonable, as archangelic as I am

myself But when it comes to people . . .

Well, that is living,'^ then The art of life,

the art of extracting all its power from the human

machine, does not lie, chiefly in processes of




bookish-culture, nor in contemplations of the

beauty and majesty of existence. It lies chiefly

in keeping the peace, the whole peace, and noth-

ing but the peace, with those with vvhom one is

thrown. Is it in sitting ecstatic over Shelle}'',

Shakespeare, or Herbert Spencer, solitary in my

room of a night, that I am improving myself

and learning to live? Or is it in watching over

all my daily human contacts? Do not seek to

escape the comparison by insinuating that I

despise study, or by pointing out that the eternal

verities are beyond dailiness. Nothing of the

kind I am so silly about books that merely

to possess them gives me pleasure. And if the

verities are good for eternity they ought to be

good for a day. If I cannot exchange them for

daily coin— if I can't buy happiness for a single

day because I 've nothing less than an eternal

verity about me and nobody has sufficient change

— then ray eternal verity is not an eternal verity.

It is merely an unnegotiable bit of glass (called

a diamond), or even a note on the Bank of

Engraving.

I can say to myself when I arise in the morn-

ing : I am master of my brain. No one can

get in there and rage about like a bull in a china




shop. If my companions on the planet's crust

choose to rage about they cannot affect me I 1

will not let them. I have power to maintain my

own calm, and I will. No earthly being can force

me to be false to my principles, or to be blind

to the beauty of the universe, or to be gloomy,

or to be irritable, or to complain against my lot.

For these things depend on the brain; cheer-

fulness, kindliness, and honest thinking are all

within the department of the brain. The dis-

ciplined brain can accomplish them. And my

brain is disciplined, and I will discipline it more

and more as the days pass. I am, therefore, in-

dependent of hazard, and I v/ill back myself to

conduct all intercourse as becomes a rational

creature. ... I can say this. I can ram this

argument by force of will into my brain, and by

dint of repeating it often enough I shall assur-

edly arrive at the supreme virtues of reason. I

should assuredly conquer— the brain being such

a machine of habit— even if I did not take the

trouble to consider in the slightest degree what

manner of things my fellow-men are— by acting

merely in my own interests. But the way of

perfection (I speak relatively) will be immensely

shortened and smoothed if I do consider, dis-




passionately, the case of the other human ma-

chines. Thus :—

The truth is that my attitude towards my fel-

lows is fundamentally and totally wrong, and

that it entails on my thinking machine a strain

which is quite unnecessary, though I may have

arranged the machine so as to withstand the

strain successfully. The secret of smooth living

is a calm cheerfulness which will leave me always

in full possession of my reasoning faculty— in

order that I may live by reason instead of by

instinct and momentary passion. The secret of

calm, cheerfulness is kindliness; no person can

be consistently cheerful and calm who does not

consistently think kind thoughts. But how can

I be kindly when I pass the major portion of

my time in blaming the people who surround

me— who are part of my environment? If I,

blaming, achieve some approach to kindliness, it

is only by a great and exhausting effort of self-

mastery. The inmost secret, then, lies in not

blaming, in not judging and emitting verdicts.

Oh I do not blame by word of mouth I am far

too advanced for such a puerility. I keep the

blame in my ov.m breast, where it festers. I am

always privately forgiving, which is bad for me.




Because, you know, there is nothing to forgive.

I do not have to forgive bad weather; nor, if I

found myself in an earthquake, should I have to

forgive the earthquake.

All blame, uttered or unexpressed, is wrong. I

do not blame myself. I can explain myself to

myself. I can invariably explain myself. If I

forged a friend's name on a cheque I should ex-

plain the affair quite satisfactorily to myself.

And instead of blaming myself I should sympa-

thise with myself for having been driven into

such an excessively awkward corner. Let me

examine honestly my mental processes, and I

must admit that my attitude towards others is

entirely different from my attitude towards my-

self. I must admit that in the seclusion of my

mind, though I say not a word, I am constantly

blaming others because I am not happy. When-

ever I bump up against an opposing personality

and my smooth progress is impeded, I secretly

blame the opposer. I act as though I had shouted

to the world : Clear out of the way, everyone,

for / am coming Everyone does not clear

out of the way. I did not really expect everyone

to clear out of the way. But I act, within, as

though I had so expected. I blame. Hence




kindliness, hence cheerfulness, is rendered vastly

more difncult for me.

What I ought to do is this I ought to reflect

again and again, and yet again, that the beings

among whom I have to steer, the living environ-

ment out of which I have to manufacture my

happiness, are just as inevitable in the scheme

of evolution as I am myself; have just as much

right to be themselves as I have to be myself;

are precisely my equals in the face of Nature;

are capable of being explained as I am capable

of being explained ; are entitled to the same lati-

tude as I am entitled to, and are no more respon-

sible for their composition and their environment

than I for mine. I ought to reflect again and

again, and yet again, that they all deserve from

me as much sympathy as I give to myself. Why

not? Having thus reflected in a general manner,

I ought to take one by one the individuals v/ith

v/hom I am brought into frequent contact, and

seek, by a deliberate effort of the imagination

and the reason, to understand them, to under-

stand why they act thus and thus, what their

difficuities are, what their explanation is, and

how friction can be avoided. So I ought to re-

flect, morning after morning, until my brain is




saturated with the cases of these individuals.

Here is a course of discipline. If I follow it I

shall gradually lose the preposterous habit of

blaming, and I shall have laid the foundations of

that quiet, unshakable self-possession which is

the indispensable preliminary of conduct accord-

ing to reason, of thorough efficiency in the ma-

chine of happiness. But something in me,

something distinctly base, says : Yes. The put-

yourself-in-his-place business over again The

do-unto-others business over again Just so

Something in me is ashamed of being moral.

(You all know the feeling ) Well, morals are

naught but another name for reasonable con-

duct; a higher and more practical form of ego-

tism— an egotism which, while freeing others,

frees myself. I have tried the lower form of

egotism. And it has failed. If I am afraid of

being moral, if I prefer to cut off my nose to

spite my face, well, I must accept the conse-

quences. But truth will prevail.



VIII

THE DAILY FRICTION

IT

is with common daily affairs that I am

now dealing, not with heroic enterprises,

ambitions, martyrdoms. Take the day, the

ordinary day in the ordinary house or office.

Though it comes seven times a week, and is the

most banal thing imaginable, it is quite worth at-

tention. How does the machine get through it?

Ah the best that can be said of the machine is

that it does get through it, somehow. The fric-

tion, though seldom such as to bring matters to

a standstill, is frequent— the sort of friction that,

when it occurs in a bicycle, is just sufficient to

annoy the rider, but not sufficient to make him

get off the machine and examine the bearings.

Occasionally the friction is very loud; indeed,

disturbing, and at rarer intervals it shrieks, like

an omnibus brake out of order. You know those

days when you have the sensation that life is

not large enough to contain the household or the

office-staff, when the business of intercourse may




be compared to the manoeuvres of two people

who, having awakened with a bad headache, are

obHged to dress simultaneously in a very small

bedroom. After you with that towel in ac-

cents of bitter, grinding politeness. If you

could kindly move your things off this chair

in a voice that would blow brains out if it were

a bullet. I venture to say that you know those

days. But, you reply, such days are few.

Usually ... Well, usually, the friction,

though less intense, is still proceeding. We grow

accustomed to it. We scarcely notice it, as a

person in a stuffy chamber will scarcely notice

the stuffiness. But the deteriorating influence

due to friction goes on, even if unperceived. And

one morning we perceive its ravages— and write

a letter to the Telegraph to inquire whether life

is worth living, or whether marriage is a failure,

or whether men are more polite than women.

The proof that friction, in various and varying

degrees, is practically continuous in most house-

holds lies in the fact that when we chance on a

household where there is no friction we are

startled. We can't recover from the phenome-

non. And in describing this household to our

friends, we say : They get on so well together,



6o THE HUMAN MACHINE

as if we were saying : They have wings and

can fly Just fancy Did you ever hear of such

a thing?

Ninety per cent of all daily friction is caused

by tone— mere tone of voice. Try this experi-

ment. Say : Oh, you little darling, you sweet

pet, you entirely charming creature to a baby

or a dog; but roar these delightful epithets in

the tone of saying : You infernal little nui-

sance If I hear another sound I '11 break every

bone in your body The baby will infallibly

whimper, and the dog will infallibly mouch off.

True, a dog is not a human being, neither is a

baby. They cannot understand. It is precisely

because they cannot understand and articulate

words that the experiment is valuable; for it

separates the effect of the tone from the effect of

the words spoken. He who speaks, speaks twice.

His words convey his thought, and his tone con-

veys his mental attitude towards the person

spoken to. And certainly the attitude, so far as

friction goes, is more important than the thought.

Your wife may say to you : I shall buy that

hat I spoke to you about. And you may reply,

quite sincerely, As you please. But it will

depend on your tone whether you convey : As



THE HUMAN MACHINE 6i

you please. I am sympathetically anxious that

your innocent caprices should be indulged. Or

whether you convey : As you please. Only

don't bother me with hats. I am above hats. A

great deal too much money is spent in this house

on hats. However, I 'm helpless Or whether

you convey : As you please, heart of my heart,

but if you would like to be a nice girl, go gently.

We 're rather tight. I need not elaborate. I

am sure of being comprehended.

As tone is the expression of attitude, it is, of

course, caused by attitude. The frictional tone

is chiefly due to that general attitude of blame

which I have already condemned as being absurd

and unjustifiable. As, by constant watchful dis-

cipline, we gradually lose this silly attitude of

blame, so the tone will of itself gradually change.

But the two ameliorations can proceed together,

and it is a curious thing that an agreeable tone,

artificially and deliberately adopted, will influ-

ence the mental attitude almost as much as the

mental attitude will influence the tone. If you

honestly feel resentful against someone, but,

having understood the foolishness of fury, inten-

tionally mask your fury under a persuasive tone,

your fury will at once begin to abate. You will




be led into a rational train of thought; you will

see that after all the object of your resentment

has a right to exist, and that he is neither a door-

mat nor a scoundrel, and that anyhow nothing

is to be gained, and much is to be lost, by fury.

You will see that fury is unworthy of you.

Do you remember the gentleness of the tone

which you employed after the healing of your

first quarrel with a beloved companion? Do you

remember the persuasive tone which you used

when you wanted to obtain something from a

difficult person on whom your happiness de-

pended? Why should not your tone always

combine these qualities? Why should you not

carefully school your tone? Is it beneath you

to ensure the largest possible amount of your

own way by the simplest means? Or is there

at the back of your mind that peculiarlj'^ English

and German idea that politeness, sympathy, and

respect for another immortal soul would imply

deplorable weakness on your part? You say that

your happiness does not depend on every person

whom you happen to speak to. Yes, it does.

Your happiness is always dependent on just that

person. Produce friction, and you suffer. Idle

to argue that the person has no business to be




upset by your tone You have caused avoidable

friction, simply because your machine for deal-

ing with your environment was suffering from

pride, ignorance, or thoughtlessness. You say I

am making a mountain out of a mole-hill. No

I am making a mountain out of ten million mole-

hills. And that is what life does. It is the little

but continuous causes that have great effects. I

repeat: Why not deliberately adopt a gentle,

persuasive tone— just to see what the results

are? Surely you are not ashamed to be wise.

You may smile superiorly as you read this. Yet

you know very well that more than once you

have resolved to use a gentle and persuasive tone

on all occasions, and that the sole reason why

you had that fearful shindy yesterday with your

cousin's sister-in-law was that you had long since

failed to keep your resolve. But you were of

my mind once, and more than once.

What you have to do is to teach the new habit

to your brain by daily concentration on it; by

forcing your brain to think of nothing else for

half an hour of a morning. After a time the brain

will begin to remember automatically. For, of

course, the explanation of your previous fail-

ures is that your brain, undisciplined, merely




forgot at the critical moment. The tone was out

of your mouth before your brain had waked up.

It is necessary to watch, as though you were a

sentinel, not only against the wrong tone, but

against the other symptoms of the attitude of

blame. Such as the frown. It is necessary to

regard yourself constantly, and in m.inute detail.

You lie in bed for half an hour and enthusiasti-

cally concentrate on this beautiful new scheme

of the right tone. You rise, and because you

don't achieve a proper elegance of necktie at the

first knotting, you frov/n and swear and clench

your teeth There is a symptom of the wrongattitude towards your environment. You are

awake, but your brain is n't. It is in such a

symptom that you may judge yourself. And not

a trifling symptom, either If you will frown

at a necktie, if you v^ill use language to a necktie

which no gentleman should use to a necktie,

what will you be capable of to a responsible

being? . . . Yes, it is very difficult. But it can

be done.



IX

FIRE

INthis business of daily living, of ordinary

usage of the machine in hourly intercourse,

there occurs sometimes a phenomenon

which is the cause of a great deal of trouble, and

the result of a very ill-tended machine. It is a

phenomenon impossible to ignore, and yet, so

shameful is it, so degrading, so shocking, so

miserable, that I hesitate to mention it. For one

class of reader is certain to ridicule me, loftily

saying: One really doesn't expect to find this

sort of thing in print nowadays And another

class of reader is certain to get angry. Never-

theless, as one of my main objects in the present

book is to discuss matters v/hich people don't

talk about, I shall discuss this matter. But my

diffidence in doing so is such that I must ap-

proach it deviously, describing it first by means

of a figure.

Imagine that, looking at a man's house, you

suddenly perceive it to be on fire. The flame is




scarcely perceptible. You could put it out if

you had a free hand. But you have not got a

free hand. It is his house, not yours. He may

or may not know that his house is burning. You

are aware by experience, however, that if you

directed his attention to the flame, the effect of

your warning would be exceedingly singular,

almost incredible. For the efiect would be that

he would instantly begin to strike matches, pour

on petroleum, and fan the flame, violently re-

senting interference. Therefore you can only

stand and watch, hoping that he will notice the

flames before they are beyond control, and ex-

tinguish them. The probability is, however,

that he will notice the flames too late. And,

powerless to avert disaster, you are condemned,

therefore, to watch the damage of valuable prop-

erty. The flames leap higher and higher, and

they do not die down till they have burned them-

selves out. You avert your gaze from the

spectacle, and until you are gone the ov/ner

of the house pretends that nothing has oc-

curred. When alone, he curses himself for his

carelessness.

The foregoing is meant to be a description of

what happens when a man passes through the




incendiary experience known as losing his

temper. (There the cat of my chapter is out

of the bag ) A man who has lost his temper is

simply being burnt out. His constitutes one

of the most curious and (for everybody) humili-

ating spectacles that life offers. It is an insur-

rection, a boiling-over, a sweeping storm. Dig-

nity, common sense, justice are shrivelled up

and destroyed. Anarchy reigns. The devil has

broken his chain. Instinct is stamping on the

face of reason. And in that man civilisation has

temporarily receded millions of years. Of course,

the thing amounts to a nervous disease, and I

think it is almost universal. You at once pro-

test that you never lose your temper— have n't

lost your temper for ages But do you not mean

that you have not smashed furniture for ages?

These fires are of varying intensities. Some of

them burn very dully. Yet they burn. One man

loses his temper ; another is merely ruffled.

But the event is the same in kind. When you are

ruffled, when you are conscious of a resentful

vibration that surprises all your being, when

your voice changes, when you notice a change

in the demeanour of your companion, who sees

that he has touched a tender point, you may




not go to the length of smashing furniture, but

you have had a fire, and your dignity is dam-

aged. You admit it to yourself afterwards. I

am sure you know what I mean. And I am

nearly sure that you, v^rith your courageous can-

dour, will admit that from time to time you suffer

from these mysterious fires.

Temper, one of the plagues of human soci-

ety, is generally held to be incurable, save by

the vague process of exercising self-control— a

process which seldom has any beneficial results.

It is regarded now as small-pox used to be re-

garded— as a visitation of Providence, which

must be barne. But I do not hold it to be in-

curable. I am convinced that it is permanently

curable. And its eminent importance as a nui-

sance to mankind at large deserves, I think, that

it should receive particular attention. Anyhow,

I am strongly against the visitation of Provi-

dence theory, as being unscientific, primitive,

and conducive to unashamed taissez-alter, A

man can be master in his own house. If he can-

not be master by simple force of will, he can be

master by ruse and wile. I v^^ould employ clever-

ness to maintain the throne of reason when it is

likely to be upset in the mind by one of these




devastating and disgraceful insurrections of brute

instinct.

It is useless for a man in the habit of losing

or mislaying his temper to argue with himself

that such a proceeding is folly, that it serves no

end, and does nothing but harm. It is useless

for him to argue that in allowing his temper to

stray he is probably guilty of cruelty, and cer-

tainly guilty of injustice to those persons who

are forced to witness the loss. It is useless for

him to argue that a man of uncertain temper in

a house is like a man who goes about a house

with a loaded revolver sticking from his pocket,

and that all considerations of fairness and reason

have to be subordinated in that house to the

fear of the revolver, and that such peace as is

maintained in that house is often a shameful and

an unjust peace. These arguments will not be

strong enough to prevail against one of the most

powerful and capricious of all habits. This

habit must be met and conquered (and it can

be ) b}?^ an even more powerful quality in the

human mind; I mean the universal human hor-

ror of looking ridiculous. The man who loses

his temper often thinks he is doing something

rather fine and majestic. On the contrary, so




far is this from being the fact, he is merely

making an ass of himself. He is merely parading

himself as an undignified fool, as that supremely

contemptible figure— a grown-up baby. He

may intimidate a feeble companion by his raging,

or by the dark sullenness of a more subdued

flame, but in the heart of even the weakest com-

panion is a bedrock feeling of contempt for him.

The way in which a man of uncertain temper is

treated by his friends proves that they despise

him, for they do not treat him as a reasonable

being. How should they treat him as a reason-

able being when the tenure of his reason is so

insecure? And if only he could hear what is

said of him behind his back . . .

The invalid can cure himself by teaching his

brain the habit of dwelling upon his extreme

fatuity. Let him concentrate regularly, with

intense fixation, upon the ideas : When I lose

my temper, when I get ruffled, when that mys-

terious vibration runs through me, I am making

a donkey of myself, a donkey, and a donkey

You imderstand, a preposterous donkey I am

behaving like a great baby. I look a fool. I am

a spectacle bereft of dignity. Everybody de-

spises me, smiles at me in secret, disdains the




idiotic ass with whom it is impossible to

reason.

Ordinarily the invalid disguises from himself

this aspect of his disease, and his brain will in»

stinctively avoid it as much as it can. But in

hours of calm he can slowly and regularly force

his brain, by the practice of concentration, to

familiarise itself with just this aspect, so that in

time its instinct will be to think first, and not

last, of just this aspect. When he has arrived

at that point he is saved. No man who, at the

very inception of the fire, is visited with a clear

vision of himself as an arrant ass and pitiable

object of contempt, will lack the volition to put

the fire out. But, be it noted, he will not succeed

until he can do it at once. A fire is a fire, and

the engines must gallop by themselves out of the

station instantly. This means the acquirement

of a mental habit. During the preliminary stages

of the cure he should, of course, avoid inflam-

mable situations. This is a perfectly simple thing

to do, if the brain has been disciplined out of its

natural forgetfulness.



X

SCHIEVOUSLY OVERV/ORK-ING IT

HAVE dealt with the two general major

causes of friction in the daily use of the

machine. I will now deal with a minor

cause, and make an end of mere dailiness. This

minor cause— and after all I do not know that

its results are so trifling as to justify the epithet

minor — is the straining of the machine by

forcing it to do work which it was never intended

to do. Although v*?^e are incapable of persuading

our machines to do effectively that which they

are bound to do somehov/, we continually over-

burden them with entirely unnecessary and inept

tasks. We cannot, it would seem, let things

alone.

For example, in the ordinary household the

amount of m^achine horse-power expended in

fighting for the truth is really quite absurd. This

pure zeal for the establishment and general ad-

mission of the truth is usually termed contra-




dictoriness. But, of course, it is not that; it is

something higher. My wife states that the

Joneses have gone into a new flat, of which the

rent is £165 a year. Now, Jones has told me

personally that the rent of his new flat is £156

a year. I correct my wife. Knowing that she

is in the right, she corrects me. She cannot bear

that a falsehood should prevail. It is not a ques-

tion of £,g, it is a question of truth. Her en-

thusiasm for truth excites my enthusiasm for

truth. Five minutes ago I did n't care twopence

whether the rent of the Joneses' new flat was

£165 or £155 or £1,056 a year. But now I

care intensely that it is £156. I have formed

myself into a select society for the propagating

of the truth about the rent of the Joneses' new

flat, and my wife has done the same. In elo-

quence, in argumentative skill, in strict super-

vision of our tempers, we each of us squander

enormous quantities of that h.-p. which is so

precious to us. And the net effect is naught.

Now, if one of us two had understood the ele-

mentary principles of human engineering, that

one V70uld have said (privately) : Truth is in-

destructible. Truth will out. Truth is never in

a hurry. If it does n't come out to-day it will




come out to-morrow or next year. It can taks

care of itself. Ultimately my wife (or my hus-

band) will learn the essential cosmic truth about

the rent of the Joneses' new flat. I already know

it, and the moment when she (or he) knows it

also will be the moment of my triumph. She

(or he) will not celebrate my triumph openly,

but it will be none the less real. And my reputa-

tion for accuracy and calm restraint will be con-

solidated. If, by a rare mischance, I am in

error, it will be vastly better for me in the day

of my undoing that I have not been too positive

now. Besides, nobody has appointed me sole

custodian of the great truth concerning the rent

of the Joneses' new flat. I was not brought into

the world to be a safe-deposit, and more urgent

matters summon me to effort. If one of us had

meditated thus, much needless friction would

have been avoided and power saved; amour-

propre would not have been exposed to risks;

the sacred cause of truth would not in the least

have suffered; and the rent of the Joneses' new

flat would anyhow have remained exactly what

it is.

In addition to straining the machine by our

excessive anxiety for the spread of truth, we give




a very great deal too much attention to the

state of other people's machines. I cannot too

strongly, too sarcastically, deprecate this aston-

ishing habit. It will be found to be rife in nearly

every household and in nearly every office. We

are most of us endeavouring to rearrange the

mechanism in other heads than our own. This

is always dangerous and generally futile. Con-

sidering the difficulty we have in our own brains,

where our efforts are sure of being accepted as

well-meant, and where we have at any rate a

rough notion of the machine's construction, our

intrepidity in adventuring among the delicate

adjustments of other brains is remarkable. We

are cursed by too much of the missionary spirit.

We must needs voyage into the China of our

brother's brain, and explain there that things are

seriously wrong in that heathen land, and make

ourselves unpleasant in the hope of getting them

put right. We have all our own brain and body

on which to wreak our personality, but this is

not enough; we must extend our personality

further, just as though we were a colonising

world-power intoxicated by the idea of the

white man's burden.

One of the central secrets of efficient daily




living is to leave cur dsily companions alone a

great deal more than we do, and attend to our-

selves. If a daily companion is conducting his

life upon principles vs^hich you know to be false,

and with results which you feel to be ujipleasant,

the safe rule is to keep your mouth shut. Or if,

out of your singular conceit, you are compelled

to open it, open it with all precautions, and with

the formal politeness you would use to a stranger.

Intimacy is no excuse for rough manners, though

the majority of us seem to think it is. You are

not in charge of the universe;you are in charge

of yourself. You cannot hope to manage the

universe in your spare time, and if you try you

will probably make a mess of such part of the

universe as you touch, while gravely neglecting

yourself. In every family there is generally

someone whose meddlesome interest in other

machines leads to serious friction in his own.

Criticise less, even in the secrecy of your cham-

ber. And do not blame at all. Accept your

environm.ent and adapt yourself to it in silence,

instead of noisily attempting to adapt your en-

vironment to yourself. Here is true wisdom.

You have no business trespassing beyond the

confines of your own individuality. In so tres-




passing you are guilty of impertinence. This is

obvious. And yet one of the chief activities of

home-life consists in prancing about at random

on other people's private lawns. What I say

applies even to the relations between parents and

children. And though my precept is exaggerated,

it is purposely exaggerated in order effectively

to balance the exaggeration in the opposite

direction.

All individualities, other than one's own, are

part of one's environment. The evolutionary

process is going on all right, and they are a por-

tion of it. Treat them as inevitable. To assert

that they are inevitable is not to assert that they

are unalterable. Only the alteration of them is

not primarily your affair; it is theirs. Your

affair is to use them, as they are, without

self-righteousness, blame, or complaint, for the

smooth furtherance of your own ends. There is

no intention here to rob them of responsibility

by depriving them of free-will while saddling

you with responsibility as a free agent. As your

environment they must be accepted as inevita*

ble, because they s.re inevitable. But as centres

themselves they have their own responsibility:

which is not yours. The historic question:




Have we free-will, or are we the puppets of

determinism? enters now. As a question it is

fascinating and futile. It has never been, and it

never will be, settled. The theory of determin-

ism cannot be demolished by argument. But in

his heart every man, including the most obstinate

supporter of the theory, demolishes it every hour

of every day. On the other hand, the theory of

free-will can be demolished by ratiocination So

much the worse for ratiocination If <zve regard

ourselves as free agents^ and the personaliiies

surrounding us as the puppets of determinism^

we shall have arrived at the working compromise

from which the finest results of living can be

obtained. The philosophic experience of cen-

turies, if it has proved anything, has proved this.

And the man who acts upor> it in the common,

banal contacts and collisions of the difficult ex-

periment which we call daily life, will speedily

become convinced of ita practical worth.



XI

AN INTERLUDE

,OR ten chapters you have stood it, but

not without protest. I know the feeling

which is in your minds, and which has

manifested itself in numerous criticisms of my

ideas. That feeling may be briefly translated,

perhaps, thus : This is all very well, but— it

is n't true, not a bit It 's only a fairy-tale that

you have been telling us. Miracles don't hap-

pen, etc. I, on my part, have a feeling that

unless I take your feeling in hand at once, and

firmly deal with it, I had better put my shutters

up, for you will have got into the way of regard-

ing me simply as a source of idle amusement.

Already I can perceive, from the expressions of

some critics, that, so far as they are concerned,

I might just as well not have written a word.

Therefore at this point I pause, in order to insist

once more upon what I began by saying.

The burden of your criticism is : Human

nature is always the same. I know my faults.



8o THE HUMAN MACHINE

But it is useless to tell me about them. I can't

alter them. I was born like that. The fata'

weakness of this argument is, first, that it is

based on a complete falsity; and second, that it

puts you in an untenable position. Human na-

ture does change. Nothing can be more unscien-

tific, more hopelessly medieval, than to im.agine

that it does not. It changes like everything else.

You can't see it change. True But then you

can't see the grass growing— not unless you

arise very early.

Is human nature the same now as in the days

of Babylonian civilisation, when the social ma-

chine was oiled by drenchings of blood? Is it

the same now as in the days of Greek civilisation,

when there was no such thing as romantic love

between the sexes? Is it the same now as it was

during the centuries when constant friction hac*

to provide its own cure in the shape of constant

war? Is it the same now as it was on March

2nd, 1819, when the British Government ofBcially

opposed a motion to consider the severity of the

criminal laws (which included capital punish-

ment for cutting down a tree, and other sensible

dodges against friction), and were defeated by

a majority of only nineteen votes? Is it the



THE HUMAN MACHINE 8i

same now as in the year 1883, when the first

S.P.C.C. was formed in England?

If you consider that human nature is still the

same, you should instantly go out and make a

bonfire of the works of Spencer, Darwin, and

Wallace, and then return to enjoy the purely joc-

ular side of the present volume. If you admit

that it has changed, let me ask you how it has

changed, unless by the continual infinitesimal

efforts, upon ihemsehes^ of individual men, like

you and me. Did you suppose it was changed

by magic, or by acts of parliament, or by the

action of groups on persons, and not of persons

on groups? Let me tell you that human nature

has changed since yesterday. Let me tell you

that to-day reason has a more powerful voice in

the directing of instinct than it had yesterday.

Let me tell you that to-day the friction of the

machines is less screechy and grinding than it

was yesterday.

You were born like that, and you can't alter

yourself, and so it's no use talking. If you

really believe this, why make any effort at all?

Why not let the whole business beautifully slide

and yield to your instincts? What object can

there be in trying to control yourself in any




manner whatever if you are unalterable? Assert

yourself to be unalterable, and you assert your-

self a fatalist. Assert yourself a fatalist, and you

free yourself from all moral responsibility— and

other people, too. Well, then, act up to your

convictions, if convictions they are. If you can't

alter yourself, I can't alter myself, and supposing

that I come along and bash you on the head and

steal your purse, you can't blame me. You can

only, on recovering consciousness, affectionately

grasp my hand and murmur: Don't apologise,

my dear fellow; we can't alter ourselves.

This, you say, is absurd. It is. That is one

of my innumerable points. The truth is, you do

not really believe that you cannot alter yourself.

What is the matter with you is just what is the

matter with me— sheer idleness. You hate get-

ting up in the morning, and to excuse your inex-

cusable indolence you talk big about Fate. Just

as patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,

so fatalism is the last refuge of a shirker. But

you deceive no one, least of all yourself. You

have not, rationally, a leg to stand on. At this

juncture, because I have made you laugh, you

consent to say : I do try, all I can. But I can

only alter myself a very little. By constitution




I am mentally idle. I can't help that, can I?

Well, so long as you are not the only absolutely

unchangeable thing in a universe of change, I

don't mind. It is something for you to admit

that you can alter yourself even a very little.

The difference between our philosophies is now

only a question of degree.

In the application of any system of perfecting

the machine, no two persons will succeed equally.

From the disappointed tone of some of your

criticisms it might be fancied that I had adver-

tised a system for making archangels out of

tailor's dummies. Such was not my hope. I

have no belief in miracles. But I know that

when a thing is thoroughly well done it often has

the air of being a miracle. My sole aim is to in-

sist that every man shall perfect his machine to

the best of his powers, not to the best of some-

body else's powers. I do not indulge in any hope

that a man can be better than his best self. I am,

however, convinced that every man fails to be

his best self a great deal oftener than he need

fail— for the reason that his will-power, be it

great or small, is not directed according to the

principles of common sense.

Common sense will surely lead a man to ask




the question : V/hy did my actions yesterday

contradict my reason? The reply to this ques-

tion will nearly always be : Because at the

critical moment I forgot. The supreme expla-

nation of the abortive results of so many efforts

at self-alteration, the supreme explanation of our

frequent miserable scurrying into a doctrine of

fatalism, is simple forgetfulness. It is not force

that we lack, but the skill to remember exactly

what our reason would have us do or think at

the moment itself. How is this skill to be ac-

quired? It can only be acquired, as skill at

games is acquired, by practice; by the training

of the organ involved to such a point that the

organ acts rightly by instinct instead of wrongly

by instinct. There are degrees of success in this

procedure, but there is no such phenomenon as

complete failure.

Habits which increase friction can be replaced

by habits which lessen friction. Habits which

arrest development can be replaced by habits

which encourage development. And as a habit

is formed naturally, so it can be formed artifi-

cially, by imitation of the unconscious process,

by accustoming the brain to the new idea. Let

me, as an example, refer again to the minor sub-




ject of daily friction, and, v>?ithin that subject,

to the influence of tone. A man employs a fric-

tional tone through habit. The frictional tone

is an instinct with him. But if he had a quarter

of an hour to reflect before speaking, and if dur-

ing that quarter of an hour he could always listen

to arguments against the frictional tone, his use

of the frictional tone would rapidly diminish;

his reason would conquer his instinct. As things

are, his instinct conquers his reason by a surprise

attack, by taking it unawares. Regular daily

concentration of the brain, for a certain period,

upon the non-frictional tone, and the immense

advantages of its use, will gradually set up in the

brain a new habit of thinking about the non-

frictional tone; until at length the brain, disci-

plined, turns to the correct act before the old,

silly instinct can capture it; and ultimately a

new sagacious instinct will supplant the old

one.

This is the rationale. It applies to all habits.

Any person can test its efficiency in any habit.

I care not whether he be of strong or weak will

— he can test it. He will soon see the tremen-

dous difference between merely making a good

resolution — (he has been doing that all his




life without any very brilliant consequences) —and concentrating the brain for a given time ex-

clusively upon a good resolution. Concentra-

tion, the efficient mastery of the brain— all is

there I



XII

AN INTEREST IN LIFE

Mk FTER a certain period of mental discipline,

MJa of deliberate habit-forming and habit-

^b ^m breaking, such as I have been indicating,

a man will begin to acquire at any rate a super-

ficial knowledge, a nodding acquaintance, v/ith

that wonderful and mysterious affair, his brain,

and he will also begin to perceive how important

a factor in daily life is the control of his brain.

He will assuredly be surprised at the miracles

which lie between his collar and his hat, in that

queer box that he calls his head. For the effects

that can be accomplished by mere steady, per-

sistent thinking must appear to be miracles to

apprentices in the practice of thought. When

once a man, having passed an unhappy day be-

cause his clumsy, negligent brain forgot to con-

trol his instincts at a critical moment, has said

to his brain : I will force you, by concentrating

you on that particular point, to act efficiently the

next time similar circumstances arise, and when




he has carried out his intention, and when the

awkv^ard circumstances have recurred, and his

brain, disciplined, has done its work, and so pre-

vented unhappiness— then that man will regard

his brain with a new eye. By Jove he will

say ; I 've stopped one source of unhappiness,

anyway. There was a time when I should have

made a fool of myself in a little domestic crisis

such as to-day's. But I have gone safely through

it. I am all right. She is all right. The atmo-

sphere is not dangerous with undischarged elec-

tricity And all because my brain, being in

proper condition, watched firmly over my in-

stincts I must keep this up. He will peer into

that brain more and more. He will see more

and more of its possibilities. He will have a new

and a supreme interest in life. A garden is a

fairly interesting thing. But the cultivation of

a garden is as dull as cold mutton compared to

the cultivation of a brain ; and wet weather won't

interfere with digging, planting, and pruning in

the box.

In due season the man whose hobby is his

brain will gradually settle down into a daily

routine, with v/hich routine he will start the

day. The idea at the back of the mind of the



THE HUMAN MACHINE 8g

ordinary man (by the ordinary man I mean the

man whose brain is not his hobby) is almost

always this : There are several things at pres-

ent hanging over me— worries, unfulfilled am-

bitions, unrealised desires. As soon as these

things are definitely settled, then I shall begin

to live and enjoy myself. That is the ordinary

man's usual idea. He has it from his youth to

his old age. He is invariably waiting for some-

thing to happen before he really begins to live.

I am sure that if you are an ordinary man (of

course, you are n't, I know) you will admit that

this is true of you; you exist in the hope that

one day things will be sufficiently smoothed out

for you to begin to live. That is just where you

differ from the man whose brain is his hobby.

His daily routine consists in a meditation in the

following vein : This day is before me. The

circumstances of this day are my environment;

they are the material out of which, by means of

my brain, I have to live and be happy and to

refrain from causing unhappiness in other people.

It is the business of my brain to make use of

this material. My brain is in its box for that

sole purpose. Not to=morrow Not next year

Not when I have made my fortune Not when



go THE HUMAN MACHINE

my sick child is out of danger Not when my wife

has returned to her senses Not when my salary

is raised Not when I have passed that exami-

nation Not when my indigestion is better

But now To-day, exactly as to-day is The

facts of to-day, which in my unregeneracy I

regarded primarily as anxieties, nuisances, im-

pediments, I now regard as so much raw material

from which my brain has to weave a tissue of

life that is comely.

And then he foresees the day as well as he

can. His experience teaches him where he will

have difficulty, and he administers to his brain

the lessons of which it will have most need. He

carefully looks the machine over, and arranges

it specially for the sort of road which he knows

that it will have to traverse. And especially he

readjusts his point of view, for his point of view

is continually getting wrong. He is continually

seeing worries where he ought to see material.

He may notice, for instance, a patch on the back

of his head, and he wonders whether it is the

result of age or of disease, or whether it has

always been there. And his wife tells him he

must call at the chemist's and satisfy himself at

once. Frightful nuisance Age The endless




trouble of a capillary complaint Calling at the

chemist's will make him late at the office etc.,

etc. But then his skilled, efficient brain inter-

venes : What peculiarly interesting m.aterial

this mean and petty circumstance yields for the

practice of philosophy and right living And

again: Is this to ruffle you, O my soul? Will

it serve any end whatever that I should buzz

nervously round this circumstance instead of

attending to my usual business?

I give this as an example of the necessity of

adjusting the point of view, and of the manner

in which a brain habituated by suitable concen-

tration to correct thinking will come to the rescue

in unexpected contingencies. Naturally it will

work with greater certainty in the manipulation

of difficulties that are expected, that can be seen

coming ; and preparation for the expected is,

fortunately, preparation for the unexpected. The

man who commences his day by a steady con-

templation of the dangers which the next sixteen

hours are likely to furnish, and by arming him-

self specially against those dangers, has thereby

armed himself, though to a less extent, against

dangers which he did not dream of. But the

routine must be fairly elastic. It may be neces-




sary to commence several days in succession—for a week or for months, even— with disciplin-

ing the brain in one particular detail, to the tem-

porary neglect of other matters. It is astonish-

ing how you can weed every inch of a garden

path and keep it in the most meticulous order,

and then one morning find in the very middle of

it a lusty, full-grown plant whose roots are posi-

tively mortised in granite All gardeners are

familiar with such discoveries.

But a similar discovery, though it entails hard

labour on him, will not disgust the man whose

hobby is his brain. For the discovery in itself

is part of the material out of which he has to

live. If a man is to turn everything whatsoever

into his own calm, dignity, and happiness, he

must make this use even of his own failures.

He must look at them as phenomena of the brain

in that box, and cheerfully set about taking meas-

ures to prevent their repetition. All that happens

to him, success or check, will but serve to in-

crease his interest in the contents of that box.

I seem to hear you saying : And a fine egotist

he '11 be Well, he '11 be the right sort of ego-

tist. The average man is not half enough of an

egotist. If egotism means a terrific interest in




one's self, egotism is absolutely essential to effi-

cient living. There is no getting away from that.

But if egotism means selfishness, the serious stu-

dent of the cra£t of daily living will not be an

egotist for more than about a year. In a year

he will have proved the ineptitude of egotism.



XIII

SUCCESS AND FAILURE

AM sadly aware that these brief chapters

will be apt to convey, especially to the

trustful and enthusiastic reader, a false im-

pression; the impression of simplicity; and that

when experience has roughly corrected this im.-

pression, the said reader, unless he is most sol-

emnly warned, may abandon the entire enter-

prise in a fit of disgust, and for ever afterwards

maintain a cynical and impolite attitude towards

all theories of controlling the human machine.

Now, the enterprise is not a simple one. It is

based on one simple principle— the conscious

discipline of the brain by selected habits of

thought— but it is just about as complicated as

anything well could be. Advanced golf is child's

play compared to it. The man who briefly says

to himself : I will get up at 8, and from 8.30

to 9 I will examine and control my brain, and so

my life will at once be instantly improved out

of recognition — that man is destined to un-




pleasant surprises. Progress will be slow. Prog-

ress may appear to be quite rapid at first, and

then a period of futility may set in, and the

would-be vanquisher of his brain may suffer a

series of the most deadly defeats. And in his

pessimism he may imagine that all his pains have

gone for nothing, and that the unserious loung-

ers in exhibition gardens and readers of novels

in parlours are in the right of it after all.

He may even feel rather ashamed of himself

for having been, as he thinks, taken in by spe-

cious promises, like the purchaser of a quack

medicine.

The conviction that great effort has been made

and no progress achieved is the chief of the

dangers that affront the beginner in machine-

tending. It is, I will assert positively, in every

case a conviction unjustified by the facts, and

usually it is the mere result of reaction after

fatigue, encouraged by the instinct for laziness.

I do not think it will survive an impartial ex-

amination; but I know that a man, in order to

find an excuse for abandoning further effort, is

capable of convincing himself that past effort has

yielded no fruit at all. So curious is the human

machine. I beg every student of himself to con-




sider this remark with all the intellectual honesty

at his disposal. It is a grave warning.

When the machine-tender observes that he is

frequently changing his point of view; when he

notices that what he regarded as the kernel of

the difficulty yesterday has sunk to a triviality

to-day, being replaced by a fresh phenomenon;

when he arises one morning and by means of a

new, unexpected glimpse into the recesses of the

machine perceives that hitherto he has been quite

wrong and must begin again; when he wonders

how on earth he could have been so blind and so

stupid as not to see what now he sees ; when the

new vision is veiled by new disappointments and

narrowed by continual reservations; v/hen he is

overwhelmed by the complexity of his under-

taking— then let him enhearten himself, for he

is succeeding. The history of success in any art

— and machine-tending is an art— is a history

of recommencements, of the dispersal and re-

forming of doubts, of an ever-increasing concep-

tion of the extent of the territory unconquered,

and an ever-decreasing conception of the extent

of the territory conquered.

It is remarkable that, though no enterprise

could possibly present more diverse and change-




ful excitements than the mastering of the brain,

the second great danger which threatens its ulti-

mate success is nothing but a mere drying-up of

enthusiasm for it One would have thought

that in an affair which concerned him so nearly,

in an affair whose results might be in a very

strict sense vital to him, in an affair upon which

his happiness and misery might certainly turn,

a man w^ould not v/eary from sheer tedium.

Nevertheless, it is so. Again and again I have

noticed the abandonment, temporary or perma-

nent, of this mighty and thrilling enterprise from

simple lack of interest. And I imagine that, in

practically all cases save those in which an excep-

tional original force of will renders the enterprise

scarcely necessary, the interest in it will languish

unless it is regularly nourished from without.

Nov/, the interest in it cannot be nourished from

without by means of conversation with other

brain-tamers. There are certain things which

may not be discussed by sanely organised people

and this is one. The affair is too intimate, and

it is also too moral. Even after only a few min-

utes' vocalisation on this subject a deadly infec-

tion seems to creep into the air— the infection

of priggishness. (Or am I mistaken, and do I




fancy this horror? No; 2 cannot believe that

I am mistaken.)

Hence the nourishment must be obtained by

reading; a little reading every day. I suppose

there are some thousands of authors who have

written with more or less sincerity on the man-

agement of the human machine. But the two

which, for me, stand out easily above all the

rest are Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Epicte-

tus. Not much has been discovered since their

time. The perfecting of life is a power resid-

ing in the soul, wrote Marcus Aurelius in the

ninth book of To Himself, over seventeen hun-

dred years ago. Marcus Aurelius is assuredly

regarded as the greatest of writers in the human

machine school, and not to read him daily is con-

sidered by many to be a bad habit. As a con-

fession his work stands alone. But as a practical

Bradshaw of existence, I would put the dis-

courses of Epictetus before M. Aurelius. Epicte-

tus is grosser; he will call you a blockhead as

soon as look at you; he is witty, he is even

humorous, and he never wanders far away from

the incidents of daily life. He is brimming over

with actuality for readers of the year 1908. He

was a freed slave. M. Aurelius was an Emperor,




and he had the morbidity from which all em-

perors must suffer. A finer soul than Epictetus,

he is not, in my view, so useful a companion.

Not all of us can breathe freely in his atmo-

sphere. Nevertheless, he is of course to be read,

and re-read continually. When you have gone

through Epictetus — a single page or paragraph

per day, well masticated and digested, suffices—you can go through M. Aurelius, and then you

can return to Epictetus, and so on, morning by

morning, or night by night, till your life's end.

And they will conserve your interest in yourself.

In the matter of concentration, I hesitate to

recommend Mrs. Annie Besant's Thought

Power, and yet I should be possibly unjust if

I did not recommend it, having regard to its

immense influence on myself. It is not one of

the best books of this astounding woman. It is

addressed to theosophists, and can only be com-

pletely understood in the light of theosophistic

doctrines. (To grasp it all I found myself obliged

to study a much larger work dealing with the-

osophy as a whole.) It contains an appreciable

quantity of what strikes me as feeble sentimen-

talism, and also a lot of sheer dogma. But it is

the least unsatisfactory manual of the brain that




I have met with. And if the profane reader ig«

nores all that is either Greek or twaddle to him,

there will yet remain for his advantage a vast

amount of very sound information and advice.

All these three books are cheap.



XIV

A MAN AND HIS ENVIRONMENT

I

NOW come to an entirely different aspect

of the whole subject. Hitherto I have

dealt with the human machine as a con-

trivance for adapting the man to his environ-

ment. My aim has been to show how much de-

pends on the machine and how little depends on

the environment, and that the essential business

of the machine is to utilise, for making the stuff

of life, the particular environment in which it

happens to find itself— and no other All this,

however, does not imply that one must accept,

fatalistically and permanently and passively,

any preposterous environment into which destiny

has chanced to throw us. If we carry far enough

the discipline of our brains, we can, no doubt,

arrive at surprisingly good results in no matter

what environment. But it would not be right

reason to expend an excessive amount of will-

power on brain-discipline when a slighter effort

in a different direction would produce conse-




quences more felicitous. A man whom fate had

pitched into a canal might accomplish miracles

in the v^ay of rendering himself amphibian; he

might stagger the world by the spectacle of his

philosophy under amazing difficulties; people

might pay sixpence a head to come and see him

but he would be less of a nincompoop if he

climbed out and arranged to live definitely on the

bank.

The advantage of an adequate study of the

control of the machine, such as I have outlined,

is that it enables the student to judge, with some

certaint5^ whether the unsatisfactoriness of his

life is caused by a disordered machine or by an

environment for which the machine is, in its

fundamental construction, unsuitable. It does

help him to decide justly v/hether, in the case of

a grave difference between them, he, or the rest

of the universe, is in the wrong. And also, if he

decides that he is not in the wrong, it helps him

to choose a new environment, or to modify the

old, upon some scientific principle. The vast

majority of people never know, with any pre-

cision, why they are dissatisfied with their so-

journ on this planet. They make long and

fatiguing excursions in search of precious mate-




rials which all the while are concealed in their

own breasts. They don't know what they want

they only know that they want something. Or,

if they contrive to settle in their own minds what

they do want, a hundred to one the obtaining of

it will leave them just as far off contentment as

they were at the beginning This is a matter of

daily observation: that people are frantically

engaged in attempting to get hold of things

which, by universal experience, are hideously dis-

appointing to those who have obtained posses-

sion of them. And still the struggle goes on, and

probably will go on. All because brains are lying

idle It is no trifle that is at stake, said Epic-

tetus as to the question of control of instinct by

reason. // means j Are you. in your senses or

are you not ? In this significance, indubitably

the vast majority of people are not in their

sens€s ; otherwise they would not behave as they

do, so vaguely, so happy-go-luckily, so blindly.

But the man whose brain is in working order

emphatically ts in his senses.

And when a man, by means of the efficiency

of his brain, has put his reason in definite com-

mand over his instincts, he at once sees things

in a truer perspective than was before possible,




and therefore he is able to set a just value upon

the various parts v/hich go to make up his en-

vironment. If, for instance, he lives in London,

and is aware of constant friction, he will be led

to examine the claims of London as a Mecca for

intelligent persons. He may say to himself:

There is something wrong, and the seat of

trouble is not in the machine. London compels

me to tolerate dirt, darkness, ugliness, strain,

tedious daily journeyings, and general expen-

siveness. What does London give me in ex-

change? And he may decide that, as London

offers him nothing special in exchange except

the glamour of London and an occasional seat at

a good concert or a bad play, he may get a better

return for his expenditure of brains, nerves, and

money in the provinces. He may perceive, with

a certain French novelist, that most people of

truly distinguished mind prefer the provinces.

And he may then actually, in obedience to rea-

son, quit the deceptions of London with a tran-

quil heart, sure of his diagnosis. Whereas a man

who had not devoted much time to the care of

his mental machinery could not screw himself

up to the step, partly from lack of resolution, and

partly because he had never examined the sources



io6 THE HUMAN MACHINE

tions are not confused by the interference of mere

instincts.

Thirdly, there is the environment of one's gen-

eral purpose in life, which is, I feel convinced,

far more often hopelessly wrong and futile than

either the environment of situation or the en-

vironment of individuals. I will be bold enough

to say that quite seventy per cent of ambition is

never realised at all, and that ninety-nine per

cent of all realised ambition is fruitless. In other

words, that a gigantic sacrifice of the present to

the future is always going on. And here again

the utility of brain-discipline is most strikingly

shown. A man whose first business it is every

day to concentrate his mind on the proper per-

formance of that particular day, must necessarily

conserve his interest in the present. It is im-

possible that his perspective should become so

warped that he will devote, say, fifty-five years

of his career to problematical preparations for

his comfort and his glory during the final ten

years. A man whose brain is his servant, and

not his lady-help or his pet dog, will be in receipt

of such daily content and satisfaction that he will

early ask himself the question : As for this am-

bition that is eating away my hours, what will it




give me that I have not already got? Further,

the steady development of interest in the hobby

(call it ) of common-sense daily living v/ill act

as an automatic test of any ambition. If an am-

bition survives and flourishes on the top of that

daily cultivation of the machine, then the owner

of the ambition may be sure that it is a genuine

and an invincible ambition, and he may pursue

it in full faith ; his developed care for the present

will prevent him from making his ambition an

altar on which the whole of the present is to be

offered up.

I shall be told that I want to do away with

ambition, and that ambition is the great motive-

power of existence, and that therefore I am an

enemy of society and the truth is not in me. But

I do not want to do away with ambition. What

I say is that current ambitions usually result in

disappointment, that they usually mean the com-

plete distortion of a life. This is an incontestable

fact, and the reason of it is that ambitions are

chosen either without knowledge of their real

value or without knov/ledge of what they will

cost. A disciplined brain will at once show the

unnecessariness of most ambitions, and will en-

sure that the remainder shall be conducted with



io8 THE HUMAN MACHINE

reason. It will also convince its possessor that

the ambition to live strictly according to the

highest common sense during the next twenty-

four hours is an ambition that needs a lot of

beating.



XV

L.S.D.

NYBODY who really wishes to talk simple

truth about money at the present time is

•confronted by a very serious practical

difficulty. He must put himself in opposition

to the overwhelming body of public opinion, and

resign himself to being regarded either as a

poseur^ a crank, or a fool. The public is in

search of happiness now, as it was a million

years ago. Money is not the principal factor in

happiness. It may be argued whether, as a fac-

tor in happiness, money is of twentieth-rate

importance or fiftieth-rate importance. But it

cannot be argued whether money, in point of fact,

does or does not of itself bring happiness. There

can be no doubt whatever that money does not

bring happiness. Yet, in face of this incontro-

vertible and universal truth, the whole public

behaves exactly as if money were the sole or the

principal preliminary to happiness. The public

does not reason, and it will not listen to reason;



no THE HUMAN MACHINE

its blood is up in the money-hunt, and the phi-

losopher might as v/ell expostulate with an earth-

quake as try to take that public by the button-

hole and explain. If a man sacrifices his interest

under the will of some dead social tyrant in order

to marry whom he wishes, if an English minister

of religion declines twenty-five thousand dollars

a year to go into exile and preach to New Yorkmillionaires, the phenomenon is genuinely held

to be so astounding that it at once flies right

round the world in the form of exclamatorj^ news-

paper articles In an age when such an attitude

towards money is sincere, it is positively danger-

ous— I doubt if it may not be harmful— to per-

sist with loud obstinacy that money, instead of

being the greatest, is the least thing in the world.

In times of high military excitement a man may

be ostracised if not lynched for uttering opinions

which everybody will accept as truisms a couple

of years later, and thus the wise philosopher

holds his tongue— lest it should be cut out. So

at the zenith of a period when the possession of

money in absurd masses is an infallible meansto the general respect, I have no intention either

of preaching or of practising quite all that I pri-

vately believe in the matter of riches.




ordering of the hiiman machine, there is happily

no necessity to inform those who have begun to

interest themselves in the conduct of their own

brains that money counts for very little in that

paramount affair. Nothing that really helps

towards perfection costs more than is within the

means of every person v/ho reads these pages.

The expenses connected with daily meditation,

with the building-up of mental habits, with the

practice of self-control and of cheerfulness, with

the enthronement of reason over the rabble of

primeval instincts— these expenses are really,

you know, trifling. And whether you get that

well-deserved rise of a pound a week or whether

you don't, you may anyhow go ahead with the

machine ; it is n't a motor-car, though I started

by comparing it to one. And even when, having

to a certain extent mastered, through sensible

management of the machine, the art of achieving

a daily content and dignity, you come to the

embroidery of life— even the best embroidery

of life is not absolutely ruinous. Meat may go

up in price—it has done— but books won't.

Admission to picture galleries and concerts and

so forth will remain quite low. The views from

Richmond Hill or Hindhead, or along Pall Mall




at sunset, the smell of the earth, the taste of fruit

and of kisses— these things are unaffected by

the machinations of trusts and the hysteria of

stock exchanges. Travel, which after books is

the finest of all embroideries (and which is not

to be valued by the mile but by the quality), is

decidedly cheaper than ever it was. All that is

required is ingenuity in one's expenditure. And

much ingenuity with a little money is vastly more

profitable and amusing than much money with-

out ingenuity.

And all the while as you read this you are say-

ing, with your impatient sneer : It 's all very

well ; it 's all very fine talking, bui . . ... In

brief, you are not convinced. You cannot de-

racinate that wide-rooted dogma within your

soul that more money means more joy. I regret

it. But let me put one question, and let me ask

you to answer it honestly. Your financial means

are greater now than they used to be. Are you

happier or less discontented than you used to

be? Taking your existence day by day, hour by

hour, judging it by the mysterious feet (in the

chest) of responsibilities, worries, positive joys

and satisfactions, are you genuinely happier than

you used to be?




I do not wish to be misunderstood. The finan-

cial question cannot be ignored. If it is true that

money does not bring happiness, it is no less

true that the lack of money induces a state of

affairs in which efficient living becomes doubly

difficult. These two propositions, superficially

perhaps self-contradictory, are not really so. A

modest income suffices for the fullest realisation

of the Ego in terms of content and dignity; but

you must live within it. You cannot righteously

ignore money. A man, for instance, who culti-

vates himself and instructs a family of daughters

in everything except the ability to earn their own

livelihood, and then has the impudence to die

suddenly without leaving a penny— that man is

a scoundrel. Ninety— or should I say ninety-

nine ?— per cent of all those anxieties which ren-

der proper living almost impossible are caused

by the habit of walking on the edge of one's in-

come as one might walk on the edge of a preci-

pice. The majority of Englishmen have some

financial worry or other continually, everlastingly

at the back of their minds. The sacrifice neces-

sary to abolish this condition of things is more

apparent than real. All spending is a matter of

habit.




Speaking generally, a man can contrive, out of

an extremely modest income, to have all that he

needs— unless he needs the esteem of snobs.

Habit may, and habit usually does, make it just

as difficult to keep a family on two thousand a

year as on two hundred. I suppose that for the

majority of men the suspension of income for a

single month would mean either bankruptcy, the

usurer, or acute inconvenience. Impossible,

under such circumstances, to be in full and

independent possession of one's immortal soul

Hence I should be inclined to say that the first

preliminary to a proper control of the machine is

the habit of spending decidedly less than one

earns or receives. The veriest automaton of a

clerk ought to have the wherewithal of a whole

year as a shield against the caprices of his em-

ployer. It would be as reasonable to expect the

inhabitants of an unfortified city in the midst of

a plain occupied by a hostile army to apply them-

selves successfully to the study of logarithms or

metaphysics, as to expect a man without a year's

income in his safe to apply himself successfully

to the true art of living.

And the whole secret of relative freedom from

financial anxiety lies not in income, but in ex-



ii6 THE HUMAN MACHINE

penditure. I am ashamed to utter this antique

platitude. But, like most aphorisms of unassail-

able wisdom, it is completely ignored. You say,

of course, that it is not easy to leave a margin

between your expenditure and your present in-

come. I know it. I fraternally shake your hand.

Still, it is, in most cases, far easier to lessen one's

expenditure than to increase one's income with-

out increasing one's expenditure. The alterna-

tive is before you. However you decide, be as-

sured that the foundation of philosophy is a

margin, and that the margin can always be had.



XVI

REASON, REASON

IN

conclusion, I must insist upon several

results of what I may call the intensive

culture of the reason. The brain will not

only grow more effectively powerful in the de-

partments of life where the brain is supposed

specially to work, but it will also enlarge the

circle of its activities. It will assuredly interfere

in everything. The student of himself must nec-

essarily conduct his existence more and more

according to the views of his brain. This will

be most salutary and agreeable both for himself

and for the rest of the world. You object. You

say it will be a pity when mankind refers every-

thing to reason. You talk about the heart. You

envisage an entirely reasonable existence as a

harsh and callous existence. Not so. When the

reason and the heart come into conflict the heart

is invariably wrong. I do not say that the reason

is always entirely right, but I do say that it is

always less wrong than the heart. The empire



ii8 THE HUMAN MACHINE

of the reason is not universal, but within its

empire reason is supreme, and if other forces

challenge it on its own soil they must take the

consequences. Nearly always, when the heart

opposes the brain, the heart is merely a pretty

name which we give to our idleness and our

egotism.

We pass along the Strand and see a respectable

young widow standing in the gutter, with a baby

in her arms and a couple of boxes of matches in

one hand. We know she is a widow because of

her weeds, and we know she is respectable by

her clothes. We know she is not begging be-

cause she is selling matches. The sight of her in

the gutter pains our heart. Our heart weeps and

gives the woman a penny in exchange for a half-

penny box of matches, and the pain of our heart

is thereby assuaged. Our heart has performed a

good action. But later on our reason (unfortu-

nately asleep at the moment) wakes up and says

That baby was hired; the weeds and matches

merely a dodge. The whole affair was a spec-

tacle got up to extract money from a fool like

you. It is as mechanical as a penny in the slot.

Instead of relieving distress you have simply

helped to perpetuate an infamous system. You



THE HUMAN MACHINE iig

ought to know that you can't do good in that off-

hand way. The heart gives pennies in the

street. The brain runs the Charity Organisation

Society. Of course, to give pennies in the street

is much less trouble than to run the C.O.S. As

a method of producing a quick, inexpensive, and

pleasing effect on one's egotism the C.O.S. is

simply not in it with this dodge of giving pennies

at random, without inquiry. Only— which of

the two devices ought to be accused of harshness

and callousness? Which of them is truly kind?

I bring forward the respectable young widow as

a sample case of the Heart «p. Brain conflict. All

other cases are the same. The brain is always

more kind than the heart; the brain is always

more willing than the heart to put itself to a

great deal of trouble for a very little reward ; the

brain always does the difficult, unselfish thing,

and the heart always does the facile, showy

thing. Naturally the result of the brain's activity

on society is always more advantageous than the

result of the heart's activity.

Another point. I have tried to show that, if

the reason is put in command of the feelings, it

is impossible to assume an attitude of blame

towards any person whatsoever for any act what-




soever. The habit of blaming must depart abso-

lutely. It is no argument against this statement

that it involves anarchy and the demolition of

society. Even if it did (which emphatically it

does not), that would not affect its truth. Ail

great truths have been assailed on the ground

that to accept them meant the end of everything.

As if that mattered As I make no claim to be

the discoverer of this truth I have no hesitation

in announcing it to be one of the most important

truths that the world has yet to learn. However,

the real reason why many people object to this

truth is not because they think it involves the

utter demolition of society (fear of the utter

demolition of society never stopped anyone from

doing or believing anything, and never will), but

because they say to themselves that if they can't

blame they can't praise. And they do so like

praising If they are so desperately fond of

praising, it is a pity that they don't praise a little

more There can be no doubt that the average

man blames much more than he praises. His

instinct is to blame. If he is satisfied he says

nothing; if he is not, he most illogically kicks

up a row. So that even if the suppression of

blame involved the suppression of praise the




change would certainly be a change for the better.

But I can perceive no reason why the suppression

of blame should involve the suppression of praise.

On the contrary, I think that the habit of prais-

ing should be fostered. (I do not suggest the

occasional use of trowels, but the regular use of

salt-spoons.) Anyhow, the triumph of the brain

over the natural instincts (in an ideally organised

man the brain and the natural instincts will never

have even a tiff) always means the ultimate tri-

umph of kindness.

And, further, the culture of the brain, the con-

stant disciplinary exercise of the reasoning fac-

ulty, means the diminution of misdeeds. (Do

not imagine I am hinting that you are on the

verge of murdering your wife or breaking into

your neighbour's house. Although you person-

ally are guiltless, there is a good deal of sin still

committed in your immediate vicinity.) Said

Balzac in La Cousine Bette, A crime is in the

first instance a defect of reasoning powers. In

the appreciation of this truth, Marcus Aurelius

was, as usual, a bit beforehand v/ith Balzac. M.

Aurelius said, No soul v/ilfully misses truth.

And Epictetus had come to the same conclusion

before M. Aurelius, and Plato before Epictetus.




All wrongdoing is done in the sincere belief that it

is the best thing to do. Whatever sin a man does

he does either for his own benefit or for the bene-

fit of society. At the moment of doing it he is

convinced that it is the only thing to do. He is

mistaken. And he is mistaken because his brain

has been unequal to the task of reasoning the

matter out. Passion (the heart) is responsible

for all crimes. Indeed, crime is simply a conven-

ient monosyllable v/hich we apply to what hap-

pens when the brain and the heart come into

conflict and the brain is defeated. That trans-

action of the matches was a crime, you know.

Lastly, the culture of the brain must result in

the habit of originally examining all the phe-

nomena of life and conduct, to see what they

really are, and to what they lead. The heart

hates progress, because the dear old thing always

wants to do as has always been done. The heart

is convinced that custom is a virtue. The heart

of the dirty working man rebels when the State

insists that he shall be clean, for no other reason

than that it is his custom to be dirty. Useless to

tell his heart that, clean, he will live longer He

has been dirty and he will be. The brain alone

is the enemy of prejudice and precedent, which




alone are the enemies of progress. And this

habit of originally examining phenomena is per-

haps the greatest factor that goes to the making

of personal dignity; for it fosters reliance on

one's self and courage to accept the consequences

of the act of reasoning. Reason is the basis of

personal dignity.

I finish. I have said nothing of the modifica-

tions which the constant use of the brain will

bring about in the general values of existence.

Modifications slow and subtle, but tremendous

The persevering will discover them. It will hap-

pen to the persevering that their v/hole lives are

changed— texture and colour, too Naught will

happen to those who do not persevere.



BJ1581 Bennett, Arnold.B439 The human machine.

c. 1

bennett, arnold - the human machine

Documents